Thoughts and Areas of Improvement - Villanova
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Perimeter defense was ok, no argument there but the interior defense was abysmal. Earl, Samuels, and a slow 6ft white dude named Gillespie ate our lunch in the paint. It’s the reason we lost.
Forget Sanogo and Whaley. Play Carlton in the paint, Jackson at SF in place of Whaley, Bouk, Gaffney, and Martin, and Jay Wright has his hands full, he can’t focus on Bouk with Carlton in the paint, without leaving more open looks for Martin, Jackson and Gaffney. Sanogo and Cole first off the bench followed by Whaley and then Polley for some three’s. UConn could of won this game. I hope Hurley learned something from this loss. With respect to Whaley vs Jackson, Jackson shoots better, passes better, handles the ball better, and jumps 2 feet higher.
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I am not saying I disagree, because I don't know one way or the other, but what makes you think that Jackson shoots better? I have only seen him take a few shots, and he missed almost all of them.
He’s not afraid to shoot the 3, and I’ve seen him drain it after coming off the bench, and he’s just a freshman. He also has not missed yet from the FT line. His mechanics look sound to me either from the FT line or beyond the arc. If Whaley has natural talent at shooting his stats should have improved 2 seasons ago. I like Whaley, he plays his heart out, but his shooting is not his strong point. Although I will give Whaley credit for hitting a timely three Saturday.
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And Villanova seniors Gillespie and Samuels had 31 points 8 rebounds.
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bendm
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carlton in the paint should only scare uconn fans
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Huskyforlife
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@auror said it, but even without looking at the stats, it's clear that the lineups with Whaley at center have been superior to any other lineup. He's terrific in the 'dunker' spot along the baseline, and keeping him inside the 3pt line allows him to fight for more offensive rebounds.
I'm not sure how you can watch Sanogo, Whaley, or Carlton(which we have 3 years worth of evidence) control the ball on the block, and actually feel compelled to run more offense through them. Sanogo is good for a few touches a game at this point, but the other 2 should only touch the ball wide open around the rim.
I'm not sure how you can watch Sanogo, Whaley, or Carlton(which we have 3 years worth of evidence) control the ball on the block, and actually feel compelled to run more offense through them. Sanogo is good for a few touches a game at this point, but the other 2 should only touch the ball wide open around the rim.
Rico444
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Whaley can't play the 4 offensively, and Carlton would've gotten abused on defense if he had played significant minutes. If he was a dominant scorer, I would've been OK with having him out there, but he's nothing special on the offensive end and throws up shots just as ugly as what we saw from Whaley.
nelsonmuntz
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UConn has tried it your way all season, and is 10-6 against a fairly easy schedule. The only really high caliber win UConn has is over USC, when UConn went big. But maybe not playing our bigs will start working for us next game. Sure.
nelsonmuntz
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Your opinion matters less when it flies in the face of the facts. The DRtgs are not an opinion.
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Didn't @auror explain how your use of DRtg is misleading and doesn't imply what you are saying it implies?
Edit: On second look, I see that you are using it in this case to compare 2 players at the same position, so maybe it's not misleading in this context.
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Huskyforlife
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We've been starting 2 bigs for awhile now. And we start every game in a hole. I don't consider what we've been doing to be my way at all.
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And he conveniently responded to Auror but ignored the whole DRtg part, so I think your original point was correct
Marat
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It's interesting you brought up Jalen Adams. I remember that Jalen used to try to distribute and get others involved early. He would defer early on. And since the others weren't capable scorers, he would then try to pick up his scoring in the 2nd halves. The bulk of his points would come in the 2nd part of the game.,
As Bouk returns to game shape, maybe it would also help if he were to get others involved early., and get opposing defenses to focus on everyone. Then pick it up as the game dictates, forcing the opposing coach to re-adjust again to stopping Bouk but his teammates wouldn't be cold. Warm up the others and then have Bouk take it up a level .
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Perfect analysis. UConn does not have a balanced scoring option - Bouknight then the drop off is huge. Only 1 other player scored in double figures....10 points. Villanova shot a lower pct from beyond the arc than UConn.
UConn needs to have another 1 or 2 scoring options outside Bouknight and shoot higher than 66% from free throw line.
UConn is 161 nationally free throw pct
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After watching the first six and half minutes of the game with Whaley and Sonogo out there how can you possibly advocate to play them together MORE in this game, we were getting shredded defensively. Once we went to Whaley at the 5 and started switching Nova struggled to get clean looks, Whaley was tremendous on Saturday when switched onto Nova's guards. And as @auror mentioned earlier we did try to run and had success early on, Bouk drew a good amount of fouls and Nova did a good job getting back and forming a wall against him in transition and in the screen game in the half court. Having two bigs on the floor would have help Nova condense the driving lanes for Bouknight even more, and those easy paint touches and scores for Sonogo resulting from Nova switches aren't there if we have another big in the lineup much easier for Nova to help on that.
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nelsonmuntz
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@auror and @navery12 's opinion > facts. Got it. I am hearing a lot of excuses for why it is the fault of the bigs, who are barely playing, when UConn keeps losing games exactly the same way, getting burned on the perimeter and having no help defense at the basket, and playing hot potato with the ball along the perimeter for 29 seconds and expecting someone to magically get open.
You two have gotten your wish the whole season. Hurley's game plan is your game plan, and it clearly is not working. The team I watched on Saturday couldn't play any harder, and Villanova missed a bunch of looks it usually hits, and UConn was still out of it with 8 minutes left.
But maybe doing exactly the same thing again will lead to a different result next time UConn plays someone good.
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Yeah, you’re right, Carlton is awful. Maybe Hurley should go after this kid.........
Yes, 5-out maximizes spacing near the hoop, not on the perimeter. By not having a (or two!) permanent fixture(s) near the basket clogging the paint, you're free to drive, flash, cut, back cut, etc. with more success, There are more players near the perimeter, but the goal of 5-out is not necessarily to shoot 3's (you just need 5 3 point shooters to make the opponent respect their gravity). Once you beat the first level of defense, whether by dribble penetration, a cut, or a roll/slip on a PnR, then you have a more or less free run to the hoop. At rim attempts are more effective when you play 5-out, and they are the most valuable shots in basketball. Our game against St. John's showed this. The rim protection from the opponent is just not there if you're dragging everyone away from the hoop. Or if it is, then a player is left for a wide open 3 and puts the opponent into a deadly rotation. A wide open 3 is the next best shot in basketball. So the offense puts you into a position to get either of the two best shots in basketball.
At rim attempts are less valuable in 2 big lineups because there's so much more attention at the rim. Post ups in regular offenses are not all that great of a shot, except with transcendent offensive players. Bigs tend to travel or turn the ball over or lose the ball when doubled, etc. There's just a lot more defensive attention concentrated in a smaller area defended by large dudes and that leads to mistakes and contested shots. Our bigs are pretty good, but they're not transcendent by any means. But bigs on the block is certainly a viable strategy if you have an advantage AND your big can hang on the defensive end. The latter is usually the problem for us when we play against opponents with small lineups, and also having Whaley at the 4 not really doing anything on offense.
5-out doesn't forego offensive rebounding necessarily; Nova was outrebounding us on the offensive glass for most of the game until we got desperate at the end. The opposing team being spread out means there are creases that you can be first to the ball on long rebounds, etc. The corner transition D thing is overblown if you have good communication and buy-in. I mentioned in my last comment about how good Nova's transition D was this game.
Where we agree: Bad 5-out offense is still bad offense. Passing the ball around the perimeter with no movement or cutting is still bad offense even if you have the right 5-out personnel. Just like doing the same against a zone is bad.
You can defend 5-out a little easier if you have an incredibly mobile, yet still dominant defensive big man who can stay on his man on the perimeter but still recover to defend the paint. But there are like 4 of them in the world (AD, Bam, Giannis, and Draymond). The Heat having Bam certainly helped them against the Bucks in that regard. Whaley is pretty good, but he's not quite quick or long enough to fulfill that role.
Where we also agree: playing 5-out when you don't have the personnel is not ideal. You need 5 playmakers and 5 shooters to have the best version. I wish Jackson could shoot consistently and I wish Whaley could either playmake more or shoot more readily. But we don't have that, which is why we don't actually use 5 out that much. But Villanova does and they're really good. Which is why calling 5-out a bad offense regardless of personnel when you mean that some teams that run 5-out don't run it very well or shouldn't run it is disingenuous. And praising Villanova consistently shows that incongruity.
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I posted lineup level data (summarized) as the basis of my claims. You've offered DRTG of individual players and just saying the same thing over and over.
Kinda leaving out that 2 of our best players were hurt for a bunch of those losses. We are 6-2 with Bouk and the one loss we were up with 30 seconds left shooting free throws and the other was an away game against a top 10 team
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Whaley and Sanogo stunk up the court, missed chippies, missed passes, fouling a guy under the basket who is 10 or 11 inches shorter, playing “hot potato” 8 feet from their own basket. Sanogo’s only a freshman, so it’s understandable. Feel bad for Whaley, he couldn’t catch a break from anyone, Hurley, the refs. I think he’d be playing better with a real crowd, cheerleaders, the band, home or away.
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The reason we lost wasn’t our defense- please re-watch the game, take a look at the stats, & check Hurley quotes post game. Once again, we held Villanova way, way below their offensive averages.
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You have seen Jackson drain a 3-pointer twice as a Husky. You have seen him brick a 3-pointer 12 times. I hope you're right in saying that he is a better shooter and will show it soon. I am just saying that I don't see signs that he is a good shooter like you do. Squirrel shoots more than two times better from beyond the arc, albeit in a small sample size. I don't recall Jackson ever taking a 2-point jumper, so it's hard to compare there at this point. The one shooting advantage Jackson has over Squirrel is at the charity stripe, where Squirrel is horrendous this season. Then again, Andre has only attempted 4 free throws. Finally, Squirrel's true shooting percentage is better than Jackson's.
TL;DR: Andre may be a better shooter than Squirrel, and I hope he is, but the numbers so far do not support that at all.